Surviving Capitalism A Financial Literacy Workshop – Recap!

On Saturday, May 12, 2018 SDL collaborated with Impacct Brooklyn to host its first financial empowerment workshop “Surviving Capitalism A Financial Literacy Workshop.”

It was an intimate workshop and a two hour event. The first hour was discussion and consciousness raising led by SDL. We discussed topics like “What does financial literacy and having a healthy relationship to money mean to you? What did you learn about money growing up your household? What habits do you have because of this? What was the first time you interacted with a financial institution? What are the formal or informal ways dealing of dealing with money in your family, culture or your community?”

We had many women of color from different immigrant and religious background represented (e.g. Dominican, Nigerian, Jamaican, Indian, Vietnamese) and we found many commonalities regarding our relationship with money.

The second hour of the event was led by a financial counselor at Impacct Brooklyn who shared her own story of how she was asked by her son “aren’t you tired of being poor” before she changed her relationship to money and eventually became a financial counselor. Impact Brooklyn shared “how to make a budget” and “how to manage your debt” worksheets and held a general Q&A for the group. The important lessons the counselor shared was “make your money work for you, don’t work for you money,” “all money needs to have a purpose,” that “goals for money are worthless without dates.” One of her most important messages is that being financially empowered meanings being truthful about your financial goals and then reframing your relationship with money so that saving becomes an act of empowerment.